• Ten •

Emma was at the police station. I supposed I should have been pleased that I was her first call, but then I remembered that Gus was incommunicado, so I may have been her second choice. Had she heard from Gus? There was so much going on. Mimi’s death, Babs leaving, Gus’s going off-line. One of my strengths was being able to connect things in unexpected ways. But in this case? I was missing some dots and didn’t know what they were. What connected and what didn’t? I’d always found that if I forced ideas, I made a mistake. Better to let the story come to me and let the connections become clear. I had to trust that they would become clear, because right now it was all just a murky muddle.

I pulled my car into a meter and added enough quarters for a couple of hours. I needed to download that parking app. But if I needed to feed the meter, it would be a good excuse to leave the station to take a walk. I took a deep breath before entering the police station. I’d spent a lot of my working life in this building, and I still wasn’t coping well with how much I missed it.

Luckily, the desk clerk was new since my time and I didn’t see anyone I knew. Yet. Emma had told me she was on the second floor, so I went up to find her. Now, this was trickier, since I likely knew at least one person. Deep breath, move forward. I asked at the front desk for Emma and was directed to a conference room at the other end of the hall. I felt a few eyes on me but didn’t look around. Instead I knocked where I was directed and waited for the terse “come in” from the other side.

Toni Vestri, twice in one day. But the look on her face precluded me from mentioning that. She tipped her head to her left, and then I saw him. John Engel. A blast from the past that I could have lived without. He was still a sweaty ball of human flesh, rounder and with less hair on the top of his head. The site of him made my skin crawl.

“Well, look who the cat dragged in,” John smirked. “I thought that they said your lawyer was here, Ms. Whitehall.”

“I never said I was her lawyer. Just that I was here to see her,” I said, pasting a fake smile on my face and looking right at that sentence-parsing pain the ass. “Does she need a lawyer?”

“No, she’s not under arrest. We’re just asking some questions. Toni joined us a little while ago, as a matter of fact. Kinda handy that you’re here, since you might be able to back her up.”

“Back her up?” I asked. John was talking tough, but I could tell he had nothing. He was fishing. Trying to get Emma off her game by making her think she needed an alibi. He must’ve already known she had one, otherwise he would’ve separated us, taken separate statements. “Timeline wise?”

“Sully, would you mind going over your timeline once you left the University Club yesterday evening?” Toni asked.

“Of course not. We left at about eight o’clock, eight thirty maybe. We walked down to the corner of Commonwealth Ave and Arlington and decided to go to the Bristol for a burger. We walked on the opposite side of the street from the park to the hotel, had dinner, and then took a cab home.”

“Home?”

“Emma and I are staying in the same townhouse on Beacon Hill. Different apartments. As we were leaving the bar, we saw a unit pull up and double park. That was about ten o’clock or so. Both officers went into the Garden.”

“Can anyone confirm the time you left?”

“Emma paid with a credit card, so it’s probably time-stamped. And the doorman who called us a cab knew her, but I’m not sure if he checked his watch.”

“You didn’t walk through the Public Garden? Wouldn’t that have been shorter?” John asked.

“Ms. Whitehall is afraid of rats, so we avoided it,” I said.

“Well, we all know you’re not afraid of rats, are you, Sullivan? Kindred spirits.” John Engel didn’t try to hide his disdain. I stared him down but didn’t rise to the bait. What was the point of giving him the satisfaction? It was all a lifetime ago. I forced my face to remain neutral.

“Is that all?” I asked.

“You both alibi each other. We confirmed it earlier,” Toni said. She shot a glance at John, daring him to contradict her. “Ms. Whitehall was just telling us about the party itself. Maybe you could supply more details?”

“Sure. Do you want to talk to us together?”

“Yes, this is an unofficial interview. It could just as easily be done at her office or her home, but Ms. Whitehall volunteered to come down to talk about the timeline for last night. Which we appreciate,” Toni said. “She was just describing an altercation between a Ms. Allyn and the victim. She mentioned that you were there. Why don’t you tell us what you remember about that?”

“Okay,” I said. I hoped Emma had gone the route I planned to take: tell the entire truth as I remembered it. “Babs—Ms. Allyn—confronted Jerome Cunningham first. I couldn’t hear what she said. He turned away, and his wife stepped in. Babs said something to her. Again, I couldn’t hear it. And then Mrs. Cunningham threw a drink in Babs’s face.”

“And then?”

“And then Babs left. Gus went out after her. Gus Knight.”

“And Ms. Allyn’s husband? Hal Maxwell? He was there?”

“He was. Hal didn’t go right out, but I think he left before we did. Didn’t he, Emma? At least I thought I saw him leave. There was sort of a mass exodus.”

“Did you see Mrs. Cunningham leave?” John asked.

“No, but Emma told me that she and her husband had stepped out.”

“But you didn’t see them go out or come in again?

“No.”

“And did you see Gus Knight come back in?” Toni asked.

“No, sorry.”

“Did you pass him on the street?”

“No.”

“Because he said Babs wouldn’t let him walk her home. So he came right back in and stayed in the front hallway,” John said. “Since there’s only one way out, you would have passed him on the way.”

I shrugged and looked at Emma. “I don’t remember seeing him. Do you?” She shook her head. “There were a lot of people leaving, and we were trying to get our coats. I don’t know what to say. It was dark. We were talking.”

“And you’d been drinking.”

“Two glasses of wine. But I still was in control of my facilities.”

“I’m sure you were,” John said. “So, you can’t provide an alibi for Gus? Would you if you could?”

“If I could, I would. But I can’t.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Gus? No, sorry. We were supposed to meet for lunch but he never showed. And he didn’t call.” I didn’t mention the text. I’d tell Toni about it later, when John wasn’t in the room. I knew she was already looking for Gus, and wasn’t sure whether the text would help or hurt his case. I’d let Toni figure that out.

Part of me wanted to ask for more details, but this wasn’t the place for friendly conversation. John and I went back and forth for a bit longer, but neither of us had much more to offer. After several minutes, Emma and I left and went to my car. “Have you heard from Gus?” she asked me.

I showed her the text.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

I gave her my translation, which really didn’t help much. “I’ve got to say, I’m a little worried,” I said.

“Damn. So am I,” she said. “I haven’t been able to reach him for hours. Where to now?”

“Let me text Harry, see if they’re done for the day and I can pick them up. Otherwise, we’ll head home?” I sent a text to Harry and waited. After a few minutes, I texted Holly and asked if they were done. Another hour, she texted back.

Tell Harry and Stewart I’ll meet them at home.

Will do. Talk to you tomorrow.

“Let’s get some dinner on the way, what do you say? We’ll figure out how to find Gus.” I pulled out into the traffic and eased my way into the righthand lane. We’d be taking back roads over to Beacon Hill, and that would cut down on traffic considerably.

“I’ll call in for a couple of pizzas and a salad from down the street. We can pick it up after we drop the car.”

“Sounds like a plan. I keep meaning to go grocery shopping but haven’t found the time yet,” I said.

“Then what’s all that?” Emma pointed to the bags in the back seat.

“Rations, not groceries. More on the junk food side of the food pyramid than the healthy side.”

“Works for me,” Emma said. She sighed, and I looked over at her. Her lips were pursed and her brow furrowed. “When you came in, I was hoping you wouldn’t be worried—that Gus would have talked to you and you could talk me down a bit,” she said.

“Sorry. When did you last speak with him?” I asked.

“This morning. He asked me for Jerry Cunningham and Hal Maxwell’s cell numbers, which I gave him.”

“He didn’t have them?”

“No. He had to get a new phone recently. Kate dropped his old one in a sink or something. Anyway, he lost all his contacts.”

“He didn’t have—”

“You sound like Eric,” Emma said. “He couldn’t believe that someone we knew didn’t have all of his records living in the cloud. Gus was, is, very conservative about privacy. I do know he was very upset about losing the info on his phone, and he was hoping to get it back soon.”

“He had my cell number,” I said.

“One of the first ones he asked me for,” Emma said. “Anyway, he didn’t tell me why he wanted Jerry’s number.”

“I talked to Kate this morning. Did you?” Emma shook her head. “She was wound a little tight. Said that Gus had broken off his business relationship with folks in any way associated with the Cunninghams. Did you know he did that?”

“Yes. Sorry, I should have mentioned it. Gus was diving deep into a lot of issues and decided to extricate us from a few more deals. He sent out a couple of emails to Eric and me late last night.”

“What were the issues?”

“Not sure. I know he was investigating a few threads that gave him worry. His phrasing. Yesterday afternoon, he let me know he was cutting off business ties with another four clients who were working with the Cunningham Corporation. He was concerned about some conflicts of interest. He didn’t explain more.”

“Conflicts of interest? Not because of their involvement with the Cunninghams?”

“He said conflicts of interest. We were supposed to talk about it more today. He said some of it would involve the Whitehall business directly, so he wanted to talk it through with me.”

“Were you worried that it would be bad for your business?”

“In Gus I trust,” Emma said. “Plain and simple. I trusted that he knew better than I did because of the work he was doing. I also know he knew how much I valued my relationships with the Cunninghams, and he wouldn’t risk that without good cause. One of the reasons he kept me out of the loop was so I could keep my business and personal lives separated as much as possible.”

“His text was cryptic, to put it mildly. ‘Mimi dead doesn’t make sense’?”

“I don’t even think he knew Mimi that well, but I could be wrong. Maybe he was distraught?”

“Maybe. ‘Heading to CC’? What do you think that means?”

“I’d assume the Cunningham Corporation, to work out details? We had a meeting scheduled for later today but it got canceled. What are you thinking, Sully?”

“I’m thinking we need to find Gus.”

We need to find Gus. For some reason, that was making my gut ache. I had no idea how we were going to find him. But I had no idea about a lot of things. Time to go to work.

I called Toni’s cell and got voicemail. “Toni, Sully. Listen, I’m going to cut to the chase. I don’t know where Gus is and I’m worried. His voicemail is full, and the phone doesn’t even ring anymore. I got a text from him. I’m going to forward it to you now. Give me a call.”

“Why did you do that?” Emma asked. “It was obvious the police think Gus had something to do with this. You just gave them proof.”

“Not them. Toni. And maybe it is proof, but of what? In Gus we trust, right? I’ve known Toni a lot of years, worked with her for a while. She’s friends with Gus. It won’t hurt to keep her in the loop. She has more juice and can try to trace his cell.”

“You’re that worried?” Emma asked.

“I guess I am, yeah. Just seems that when someone like Mimi Cunningham dies like that, there’s probably more to it than a random mugging. Why wasn’t Jerry with her, anyway?”

“From what I understand, Jerry went out for a drink with some other people after the event. She wanted to go home, so she took a shortcut through the Public Garden. You don’t think it was a robbery?”

“I don’t know of many robbers who strangle their victims. They tend to use guns and knives, and mostly for show. Strangulation shows passion. And at ten o’clock at night? Even this time of year there are people around. Even with rats keeping citizens at bay.”

“Okay. So, if it isn’t a robbery … maybe Gus saw it happen?”

“No. If Gus saw something happen, he would have called it in himself and waited for the police. But if he heard about the murder this morning and thought about something that didn’t make sense?”

“And wanted to check it out? Or double check something? Maybe he’s doing his own investigating?”

“Maybe,” I said. “It doesn’t sound very Gus-like, unless he was really uncertain about something.”

“What should we do?” Emma asked.

“Let’s go home, write down what we know, and compare notes.”

While Emma called in our food order, I thought about Gus doing investigating. Maybe he was following a hunch. If that was true, I needed to make it easy for him to find me. I checked my phone, which needed to be charged. I would stay put at the apartment and keep trying to reach out to him.

Emma and I dumped the car in the garage and grabbed the shopping bags. I did buy a lot of food. Yeesh. We made our way down Charles Street and stopped to pick up the pizza and salad. Three pizzas. They threw in some rolls for good measure.

“Leftover pizza is perfect for any meal,” Emma said. “Can you grab the groceries if I grab the pizza?” I put the salad and rolls into the grocery bags and picked them up. Not too bad. I shoved my accessory shopping bag into my knapsack and put it on. I could do this. Besides, pizza twice in one day? I needed to step up the exercise somehow.

We were juggling pizza and Trader Joe’s bags and my knapsack and her briefcase as we approached the door. Emma handed me the pizza while she pulled out her keys. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a couple getting out of a car. She had a camera and he was holding a mic.

“Ms. Whitehall, Ms. Whitehall! We have a couple of questions for you. What’s it like knowing someone else who was murdered? Do you have any comment?”

I saw Emma fumble a bit with the lock. I physically stepped in front of her, blocking their path. I didn’t say anything, I just stared. The pizza boxes took away from my penetrating look, but I still had it. Mr. Reporter stopped in his tracks.

“Ms. Whitehall, it’s better for you to talk to us now, get your story out.”

Emma had opened the door. “Puh-leeze, I said.

“Who are you?”

“Greta Garbo. I want to be alone.” I followed Emma in the door and pushed it closed. The heavy wooden door had windows near the top, but the glass was old and hand-blown. There were side panels of glass to let light in, but these were fairly opaque. And likely shatterproof for security reasons, or at least I hoped so. I resisted the urge to turn around and look out the door, even when a light went on. Probably from the camera—were they really doing a report from outside the apartment?

“You should text the boys, tell them to use the alley entrance,” Emma said. “We should have used it but I didn’t want to walk the extra block.” She took the pizzas and headed up the stairs to Harry’s apartment. She waited on the landing while I moved past her with the key to open the door.

“I don’t know. Maybe we should have them come in the front door. Handsome men coming in at all hours? It could divert their attention,” I said.

“Very funny. Text them. They don’t deserve to be hit by this.”

“Deep breath, Emma. You knew this could happen, you said it yourself. We’ll just start using the alley door—it’s blocked by a gate, right? No big deal.”

“You’re right. More important things to worry about. Let’s put the pizza in the oven to keep it warm.”

My cell phone buzzed and dinged. I checked the text. It was from Stewart, not Gus.

Late rehearsal. Going out afterward. Don’t wait dinner for us. See you tomorrow.

“We’re on our own tonight,” I said to Emma.

“Probably just as well. Making small talk when I’m thinking about Gus and Mimi—not sure I’m up to that. How about if we have the fig and blue cheese pizza, some salad, and put the rest away?”

“Let me go get some tools of the trade so we can do some work while we eat.” I walked toward my bedroom.

Emma called after me, “Tools of the trade?”

“Index cards, highlighters, sharpies, tape,” I responded over my shoulder. I grabbed the small bag I took with me always, my mobile office full of those supplies and others. “We want to find Gus, right?”

“Yes, and—”

“No ‘and.’ Not right now. It won’t survive the test of the cops if they think we’re trying to figure out what happened to Mimi Cunningham. We need to have clarity of purpose. Let’s focus on Gus and try to figure out what he was doing, what he found out. Let’s search for Gus and see where that takes us.”

Emma put a plate with a piece of pizza down on the table in front of me, and one in front of herself. She poured two glasses of water and put them down as well. Two wineglasses followed, along with napkins, forks, and knives. “I figure tonight we should be better about water-then-wine-then-water. Keep our heads a little clearer.”

“We do need some clear heads,” I said, unpacking my office bag.

“Now show me these tools of the trade.” Emma poured us each a glass of wine and sat down. I took out the index cards, a brand-new pack, and handed her a stack. Then I handed her a marker and laid the highlighters out in front of us.

“So, today’s Wednesday. I got a text from Gus around three o’clock this afternoon but I don’t know when he sent it. I think that’s the last time anyone’s heard from him.” I wrote down Wednesday on one card and text from Gus 3 p.m. on another card and laid it under the Wednesday card. I highlighted the 3 p.m. in yellow. “Yellow indicates we can’t confirm what’s on the card. Let’s go backward in time, figure out what we know.”

“What we know about Gus’s disappearance? Or about everything? Are you making us a crime board?”

“I’ll admit, this is a tool I used when I was a cop. No piece of information is off-topic when you’re trying to solve a mystery. The mystery we’re trying to solve is ‘where is Gus?’ But there’s a lot more to that story. We don’t know what pieces have to do with anything. So let’s work backward, fill in the gaps we know, try to figure out what he was thinking. Where he was going.”

“You really think this will help?”

“It can’t hurt. Besides, I don’t know what else to do right now. And I need to do something.”